Israel is vaccinating 2% of their population a day!

[notevenat20]

Just that. Wow!

@Bobbiepin

Why are our soldiers not being trained to vaccinate? Set up football stadiums with the military and get thousands done in hours rather than days.

In numbers per head of population we have about 3/25 of the military personnel of Israel.

We could use our own unconscripted army to do the same if we had enough vaccine herecomesthesun No idea why our army isn't brought in to help when we do TBH.

See my post and Times link upthread. The army will be helping.

I’ve just read somewhere that India has stockpiled 50m of the Oxford vaccine and is approving it today or tomorrow!?
Am I right that we only have like 50k ready to use at the moment?
How do we so little if we have ordered 100million? And how does India have 50million ready to use already?
I really don’t understand any of this. Who and where are they manufactured? And why do we have so many problems with receiving the doses?

@Eyewhisker

Totally agree OP. I don’t understand why each vaccination needs a call to the individual to book an appointment. Surely they can set up an online system similar to the test centres? And why it hasn’t been set up already given that we’ve known for 6 months this is coming?

depends where you are. Some people are just getting a text and then have to reply YES or NO to say they're going.

But agree it doesn't seem desperately well organised given that they've clearly known this was coming.

I think the crux it is that it will be GP led so it depends how well organised your GP practice is.

An infuriating problem in the UK is that although we apparently have plenty of the Oxford vaccine in the UK it hasn't been put into the right bottles/vials yet to be delivered to patients. I can't work out for the life of me why this wasn't done weeks ago.

I think the crux it is that it will be GP led so it depends how well organised your GP practice is

Why aren't pharmacists doing huge numbers of Oxford vaccinations? There are a lot of pharmacists in the country

Our plan for vaccinations is going to be painfully slow. How long before the rest of the world is steaming ahead when you look at percentage of the population vaccinated.

I volunteered to vaccinate, not heard anything. I've 18 years experience as a nurse and was a clinical nurse specialist when I left. I actually taught clinical skills in the school of nursing including injection techniques.

Our GP surgery has put a huge amount of work into organising this and it is running really well despite the problems of getting a large number of very elderly frail patients through in as short a time as possible while maintaining Covid safety

If population size is the issue then Northern Ireland (1.8m) should be sprinting through the vaccinations.

@ErrolTheDragon

The Israelis are doing a great job for their population- not so good if you're a Palestinian... And if you want to compare the U.K. against other countries, maybe a good idea to check against somewhere more comparable ...

www.npr.org/2020/12/31/952364150/as-israel-leads-in-covid-19-vaccines-per-capita-palestinians-still-await-shots

Obviously the other European nations have got off to an oddly slow start and hopefully will catch up with the U.K. soon.

Oh fuck off. The terrorise organisation that runs the Palestinian Territories was offered the vaccine both by Israel and Saudi Arabia and turned it down.

@2boysand1princess

I’ve just read somewhere that India has stockpiled 50m of the Oxford vaccine and is approving it today or tomorrow!? Am I right that we only have like 50k ready to use at the moment? How do we so little if we have ordered 100million? And how does India have 50million ready to use already? I really don’t understand any of this. Who and where are they manufactured? And why do we have so many problems with receiving the doses?

I think the times link says we have 500k doses ready, not 50k.

I believe there is manufacturing in the U.K. but the biggest vaccine producer in the world is in India and they committed to producing the Oxford vaccine ahead of testing being completed to streamline the process (financally risky)

(This is what I remember from what I read some time ago so if anyone has other info please correct me)

Israelis cut through bureaucracy. On Twitter there is a thread from an Israeli saying that when one vaccination clinic was finished with its appointments for the day and a nurse noticed there were two doses left that would otherwise have to be thrown out she just grabbed random people off the street and asked them if they wanted to be vaccinated.

No need to be rude, Sebastian, I didn't know that. I guess I chanced on a biased source.

@SebastianTheCrab

Israelis cut through bureaucracy. On Twitter there is a thread from an Israeli saying that when one vaccination clinic was finished with its appointments for the day and a nurse noticed there were two doses left that would otherwise have to be thrown out she just grabbed random people off the street and asked them if they wanted to be vaccinated.

I've heard an MNer saying much the same here - I think nhs staff not random.

I think the crux it is that it will be GP led so it depends how well organised your GP practice is

Yep, unfortunately. Our GP surgery is hopeless and are usually a couple of months behind other surgeries for the normal flu jab. I have mine each year at the chemist instead as it's sooner/easier. The surgery are vaguely saying they're going to start vaccinations mid-late January. No sense of urgency then!

@orangenasturtium

Yes, pharmacists could vaccinate with training.

Surprised that vets and beauticians trained to inject Botox aren't on the list of people who could be trained.

It has probably been said, but in answer to the PP saying we should have mass vaccination gatherings in stadiums, that would be fine if there wasn't a contagious virus around. Imagine thousands of 60 to 79 year olds heading to Wembley by car and public transport on the same day 😂

@ErrolTheDragon

No need to be rude, Sebastian, I didn't know that. I guess I chanced on a biased source.

The Palestinians have their own leadership, territory and money so why you'd expect Israel to provide a vaccination programme anymore than you'd expect France to provide one for us is utterly nonsensical.

And I'll be as rude as I like because antisemitism (yup, that's what motivated your comment) fucks me off.

the Palestinian Territories was offered the vaccine both by Israel and Saudi Arabia and turned it down

Do you have a source for that @SebastianTheCrab? I couldn't find one easily. I'm not doubting you, I just couldn't find the story.

FWIW @ErrolTheDragon I rate Dan Estrin as an unbiased a reporter of the region as is possible. It is such a complex story to report that often reports have to assume that you have followed a story from the beginning and have all the background information and context because there isn't time to recap everything. In the same way that many people are outraged that Stanley Johnson has applied for a French passport when his son led the leave campaign but it is less surprising in the context that Stanley Johnson was a remain campaigner.

Israel has now vaccinated over 1 million people. 11.6% of their population.

That’s awesome. I am so pleased.
They’re still on an upward trajectory with case numbers so it will be wonderful to see when it starts to come down.
I imagine it will be really helpful in helping the rest of us understand how the vaccine impacts on spread.

@orangenasturtium

the Palestinian Territories was offered the vaccine both by Israel and Saudi Arabia and turned it down

Do you have a source for that @SebastianTheCrab? I couldn't find one easily. I'm not doubting you, I just couldn't find the story.

FWIW @ErrolTheDragon I rate Dan Estrin as an unbiased a reporter of the region as is possible. It is such a complex story to report that often reports have to assume that you have followed a story from the beginning and have all the background information and context because there isn't time to recap everything. In the same way that many people are outraged that Stanley Johnson has applied for a French passport when his son led the leave campaign but it is less surprising in the context that Stanley Johnson was a remain campaigner.

No worries - here. Not blogs, both legitimate news sources in the region.

Although I made an error - it wasn't Saudi, it was UAE, and it was "medical aid" they rejected earlier this year as opposed to the vaccine.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/palestinians-we-didnt-ask-israel-for-covid-19-vaccine-652703

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/05/palestinians-reject-covid-19-aid-uae-israel-flight.html

There have been rumours Israel was hoping to exchange some vaccine with the Palestinians for the return of bodies of Israelis that are currently in their possession but they refused. Because obviously far better to hold on to the corpses of your enemy than to get extra vaccine for your people. But that's terrorist organisations for you.

If it’s set up anything like when I had the flu jab they’ll be rattling through people in no time. I was literally in and out of the surgery in about 1 minute - name, sanitise, go to room X, are you allergic to eggs? (no), which arm? (left), jab, out by a different door. NEXT!!